After three months of silence, the Secretary of Education pulls out the confetti to present us with a shopping list that is inconsistent. Expectations were high: what was Bernard Drainville working on to justify this absence when education is a priority for the CAQ?
Finally, the announced priorities are imprecise, not quantified and above all without a clear vision for the important project that is the future of our children. However, I must say that there are some interesting avenues that I agree, such as promoting French or vocational training, that deserve to be highlighted.
The teacher dropout
Dropping out of school is no longer just an issue for students! Teachers also drop out, often exhausted and underpaid. However, the minister does not address the elephants in the class at all: the working conditions of the employees of the school network. Many of those who have left would be willing to return if their warning signs were taken seriously.
With workloads increasing and becoming ever more complex, without a concrete plan to improve working conditions, we will not see an end to the labor shortages in our schools. The minister must not only improve salaries, but also cut bureaucracy and review the composition of classes, as the milieu has long been demanding. That must be the Minister’s priority if he wants enough people working in the schools to meet the needs of the students.
The denial of the three-tier system restricts equal opportunities
Bernard Drainville can no longer pretend that the tripartite school is not the source of many educational problems. Sixty years after the Parent Report, it is so disturbing to see that promises to promote equal opportunities have been broken by governments. The private sector, specific courses that are difficult to access and regular schools lead our young people on very different paths to university! Did you know that 60% of private students, 51% of scholarship students and only 15% of regular students attend a university? Unfortunately, Quebec’s public schools reproduce social inequalities.
Currently, the portfolio and academic record of parents limit the educational path of less fortunate young people, and the CAQ is complicit in this elitism. If the minister really wants to scale up certain programs, he needs to start breaking down financial barriers to making them free and accessible to all. Ending school segregation should now be on Minister Drainville’s menu.
To be honest I was expecting a much bigger plan. Let us add that many questions remain unanswered: the minister does not know how much will be invested in his project and he cannot say how many teachers are currently missing from the network. It’s amateurism.
After three months as Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville has failed to demonstrate that he has a clear vision to ensure our children’s success: at the moment he is failing the report card.
Photo provided by Québec solidaire
ruba ghazal, responsible for education at Québec solidaire